"Have you ever wondered why college football is the only college sport that has 'conference' officials who traditionally work for only one league? College baseball umps aren't employed exclusively by one conference. Neither are college basketball refs. But college football officials are.

"You want to know why? Because college football is the only sport where the big conferences control all the money. And when you control all the money, you want control over everything else, too — and that includes the calls.

"The biggest officiating sham in sports isn't one renegade NBA official getting paid by bookies to influence games. It's entire crews of independently contracted football officials getting paid to prop up their leagues.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing college football refs of intentionally cheating. I'm just saying when one conference signs your paycheck, you're going to make darn sure that conference gets the benefit of the doubt. It's human nature."

Comments

Regarding the USF-CF game, I was watching the end of that one and late in the game USF completed a pass at the sidelines to a receiver who was basically laying on the ground. He rolled out of bounds after the catch, but in college you don't get that luxury. He was short of first down yardage, yet the ref stopped the clock. I think there was one guy on the CF sideline who saw what happened and motioned his arm in the "Keep the clock running" circle, but O'Leary didn't do anything.

I believe it was this play:
2nd down and 7 at the UCF41 0:56 -- Grothe pass completion to the left to Richardson for 6 yards to the UCF35.

They had one timeout before the play and one timeout after which they used after the next play failed to gain a first down. They ended up going for it on 4th-and-1 and converting.

Now, in the end it didn't affect the score since the kicker missed the 42 yard FG, but it could have been huge.